Americas

As the coronavirus advances deeper into the US and northern Europe, capital markets have had one of their most shocking and arduous weeks for many years.

The coronavirus will depress mergers and acquisitions activity, hurt advisory revenues and change the emphasis of deal-making in 2020, writes David Rothnie.

President Lenin Moreno’s announcement of austerity measures that could raise $2.25bn, as well as the possibility of cheaper bank loans, was not enough to stop Ecuador’s bonds plunging towards the 40 mark as oil prices fell further on Wednesday. But the sovereign is expected to make a $350m coupon payment on March 24 and some are seeing signs of encouragement in the government’s reaction.

Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) became the first bank outside Europe to issue a deeply negative yielding covered bond in a good size on Wednesday. The transaction provided a beacon for other issuers and was perfectly timed to benefit from a window of market stability between Monday’s and Thursday’s shocking volatility.

Spreads on financial institutions bonds are recovering from a brutal sell-off at the beginning of the week, as European governments and central banks weigh in to help economies deal with the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak.

Once again, corporate bond markets have staged a recovery after a shutdown of several days as asset prices plummeted in response to the growing coronavirus outbreak. Three industrial companies plus JP Morgan issued bonds in the US on Tuesday, which “all went exceptionally well” according to a head of syndicate in London. Danone launched on Wednesday the first euro corporate issue of the week, paying a high spread but small new issue premium.

Moody´s slashed Bolivia’s credit rating from Ba3 to B1 and placed its outlook on negative as it warned of a “material erosion” of the landlocked country’s fiscal and foreign exchange reserve buffers in recent years.

The Inter-American Development Bank officially postponed its Annual Meeting from March until early September on Tuesday, confirming what many potential attendees had expected.

Bond syndicate bankers covering Latin America were not ruling out a return of new issuance in the next two weeks as the market tone improved on Tuesday after a bleak Monday. But with fears around negative fund flows growing, it may be hard to persuade investors to put cash to work even if valuations look attractive.

Can the capital markets function properly with its workforce operating remotely, whether from home or at disaster recovery centres? This question is becoming increasingly important as the Covid-19 infection rate rockets and the death toll grows. One organisation that has more experience of coping than most is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, based in Beijing.

On what some EM investors described as the worst day for markets since 2008, Latin American bond buyers were left staring at a sea of red as the region’s fixed income markets were stunned into dysfunction by the sharpest fall in oil prices since 1991.

The Province of Buenos Aires said on Monday that it had hired Bank of America and Citi to advise it on its debt restructuring.